Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Mice Announced

Microsoft has announced two new mice that have been designed with the Windows 8 experience in mind. The Sculpt Comfort Mouse has a very visible Windows button on the side. You can of course press it to head back to the Start page, but you can also swipe it up and down to switch from one task to another. This is a much faster equivalent of the ALT-TAB task switching key combination, and if you happen to switch often, you may just love this mouse.

When I played with it, I was a bit worried about accidental swipes or button action. However, it’s actually pretty difficult to accidentally induce any of those two actions, so there’s really no problem there. The swipe needs to be deliberate, and depressing the button is deep enough that accident just never happened during my trial time. The smaller Sculpt Mobile Mouse is more conventional, except for the Start button at the top. It can help you scroll left and right (in addition to vertically), while keeping the mouse in hand, so it’s useful even for touchscreen users. . The Sculpt Comfort Mouse will be available in June ($40), while its mobile counterpart will appear “this month”, says Microsoft ($30).